Method of making cigar-bunches.



J.- E. SMITH. METHOD OF MAKING CIGAR BUNGHBS.

nrmoumn 2mm we. 2a, 1908. xnxnwnn un. a, 1910.

Patented Sept. 13,1910.

JAMES EDWARD SMITH, OF NEW YORK, N. Y.

METHOD OF MAKING CIGAR-BUNCHES.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Sept. 13, 1910.

Application filed August 29, 1903, Serial No. 171,308. Renewed January5, 1910. Serial No. 536,482.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, JAMES EDWARD SMITH, a citizen of the United States,residing at the city of New York, borough of Manhattan, in the countyand State of New York, have invented a new and useful Improvement inMethods of Making Cigar-Bunches, of which the following is aspeclfication.

My invention relates to a method of making ci ar bunches by which I seekto produce unches capable of being wrapped right and left, each of whichhas a proper shape both at the head and tuck ends of the bunch, andcapable of manufacture with rapidity and at a substantial saving in thecost.

There are several important factors to be taken into consideration inthe manufacture of high grade cigars, such as Cuban and Spanish cigars.The filler must have the desired shape at the head and tuck ends, itmust remain in a soft or spongy condition in order that air and smokemay be drawn freely through the cigar during consumption thereof, andthe cigar should burn evenly at the lighted end thereof. An importantfactor is the manufacture of fillers without leaving waste and scrap,and this is particularly desirable in the production of bunches whichare differently shaped at the head and tuck, such as in the well knownperfecto cigar which has a long taper at the head and a short taper atthe tuck. To secure the desired shape, it is a common practice to placethe bunches in molds, and this is true when cigars are made by hand orby machinery, except in the manufacture of the highest grade andexpensive cigars made by hand and by the most experienced and highsalaried cigar makers. Shaping the bunches by molds is not desirable,because of the delay and expense involved and the COIII- pression towhich the filler is subjected, such compression tending to obstruct thefree passage of air and smoke and to make the cigar burn irregularly atthe lighted end thereof.

It is the aim of the present invention to manufacture cigar bunchesrapidly and economically, without involving waste and scrap, and in away to produce soft spongy bunches which have the desired shape at boththe head and tuck.

Another important feature is the production of bunches which aresusceptible of rolling or wrapping both right and left. A fact familiarto those skilled in cigar making is that the leaf for choice expensivewrapper tobacco is stripped of the stem, leaving a right half and a lefthalf of the leaf available for use. Ahalf of the bunches produced inaccordance with my invention can be wrapped toward the right hand andthe remainmg half toward the left hand, thus utilizing to the bestadvantage both halves of the leaves of expensive wrapper tobacco.

According to my invention, I first take long leaves of filler tobaco andassemble them lengthwise so as to produce a rope or strand of embryofiller tobacco having the approximate thickness of the bunches it isdesired to produce. From this rope or strand of tobacco is producedwithout waste or scrap the lengths of tobacco filler, and to this endthe strand or rope is moved endwise and lengths of filler are severed orcut therefrom. A peculiarity of this transverse division of the tobaccostrand or rope into filler lengths consists in shaping of the fillersboth at head and tuck, and in producing the filler bunches in reversedorder to' enable them to be rolled right and left, that is to say, thefirst filler has a long taper head end and a short incision in the tuckend, while the second filler has a short taper tuck end and a longincision in the head, and the third filler is the same shape as thefirst filler, and so on throughout the series of fillers produced bytransversely dividing the endwise movable strand or rope of fillertobacco. The filler lengths of the divided tobacco strand or rope aresubsequently separated one from the other, and they are individuallyrolled into a binder of leaf tobacco. The step of rolling the firstfiller in the binder to produce the first bunch closes the taperingincision in the tuck end, while the similar treatment accorded to thesecond filler closes the taper: ing incision in the head thereof,whereby the fillers of adjacent bunches are produced in reversed orderand they may thereafter be rolled in wrappers right and left.

The described steps in the treatment of tobacco enables me to producesoft, spongy bunches rapidly and without waste, said bunches having anydesired shape, and being susceptible of rolling in wrappers producedfrom the right and left halves of wrapper-tobacco leaves.

It is obvious that I can prepare the lengths of filler in any desiredshape, that the tuck of the bunch-filler.

is, the head can be given more or less taper, the tuck can likewise begiven a sharper or an acute taper or it may be left without any taper,as is desired in some bunches, or the general contour of the bunch maybe changed by suitably preparing the fillers, all of the bunches beingcharacterized by a soft spongy feeling in the hand and being producedwithout any compression or molding whatsoever, so that the bunches maybe at once completed into cigars by the application of wrappers thereto,or such wrappers may be applied at any period subsequently to thecompletion of the bunches.

To enable others to understand my invention, I have illustrated theseveral steps of my method diagrammatically and shown one type ofmechanism by which the fillers may be prepared in the accompanyingdrawings, forming a part of this specification, in which Figures 1, 2and 3 are diagrammatic views of the tobacco strand or rope showing thesuccessive cuts thereon required to produce the successive lengths ofcut filler for conversion into cigar bunches in accordance with myinvention. Figs. 4 and 5 are views of bunches made from the first andsecond fillers. Fig. 6 is a sectional view of a part of a machine orapparatus for cutting the strand or rope into lengths of shaped fillerwithout waste.

The same characters of reference denote like parts in each of theseveral figures of the drawings.

In the apparatus shown by Fig. 6, the strand or rope G of tobacco formedby the operator assembling or laying leaves of tobacco lengthwise and inoverlapping order, is placed in an endless trough, C, to which motion isimparted by any suitable form of driving mechanism in a way to feed thetrough and the strand or rope of filler tobacco in an endwise directionat proper intervals, or in an intermittent manner. This trough, C, hasan end portion fitted on a suitable driving member, 7, on a shaft, 6,and the trough delivers the advancing end portion of the tobacco strandor rope G into a die box, D, the latter being in alinement with thelongitudinal cavity in the upper side of the trough. The diebox, D, has,at

its bottom, a pick-up tongue, 13, which extends into the trough at thepoint where the latter passes around the driving member, 7, to lift thetobacco strand from the bottom of the trough and guide it into thedie-box. The delivery end of the die-box, D, is shaped, viewed in plan,to conform to the contour of the head end of the bunch-filler, and saidbox is provided with a slot, 14, which conforms to the shape it isdesired to give to With this diebox, D, cooperates a cutter deviceconsisting of the head knife, E, and a tuck knife,

F, and a cutter head, 19, said knives being fastened to said cutter-headand the latter being operated with a vertical reciprocating motion. Theknife, E, is shaped in cross section to the contour of the head of thebunch, and it cooperates with the shaped delivery end of the die box soas to secure a draw or shear cut on the tobacco. The tuck knife, F,conforms in shape to the contour of the cigar tuck, and said knife playsin the slot, 14, of the die-box, D. These parts are similar to the diebox and the cutter mechanism employed in a machine for making cigarbunches which form the sub ject-ma-tter of my United States LettersPatent, dated September 8, 1903, No. 738,636, said machine constitutingone of the many mechanical contrivances which may be employed incarrying out my invention in whole or in part. As disclosed by saidpatent, the endless trough, C, is moved intermittently with alternatelong and short periods of motion by a suitable form of ratchet feedmechanism, whereas the cutter mechanism is reciprocated once to everytwo periods of motion of the trough, and in the intervals of rest of thelatter.

I have not considered it necessary in this application to disclose themeans for actuating the trough and the cutter devices, because they willbe readily understood by reference to my aforesaid patent.

In practicing the process, the operator assembles long leaves of fillertobacco in the hands and places them in the trough, C, so as to producea tobacco strand or rope, G, having the desired width and thicknessaccording to the desired size of the bunches to be produced. The leavesselected and placed successively by the operator in the trough must belaid in overlapping order so as to produce the tobacco strand Grcontinuously. \Vith the cutter devices in a raised position, the strand,G, is advanced bythe trough with a short period of motion, and the endportion of said strand is moved into the diebox, D, below the cutterknives. The trough now stops, and the cutter devices descend, the knivesE, F, cutting through the strand, Gr, so as to sever the first length offiller H therefrom, as shown by Fig. 1, said filler having a long taper,h, and a short incision, it, given to the head and the tuck,respectively, by the knives, E, F. This leaves a short taper, '2", atthe end. of the tobacco strand, G, as shown by Fig. 1. he cutter is nowlifted, and the trough, C, is moved with along period of motion so thatthe filler strand, G, is again moved endwise, as shown by Fig. 2, theadvancing end, 2", of the filler strand shoving the first filler, H, outof the die-box. When the filler strand is moved by the trough, the end,2", passes into the die-box, and the trough now stops,

leaves the end portion of the filler strand below the knives, while thefirst filler, H, is discharged; and this filler is now rolled into atobacco binder, see Fig. 4, the application of which binder closes theincision, h, and gives the desired shape to the tuck of the bunch, thelatter being now complete. The trough, C, is moved with a short periodof motion, and the end 7." of the filler strand is shoved beyond thedelivery end of the diebox for a distance equal to the length of thenext filler; and when the trough and the filler strand stop, the cutterdevices again descend so that the knives, E, F, again out through thefiller strand, as shown by Fig. 3, and thereby produce the second andthird shaped fillers, I, J. The reason for having an alternative longand short period of motion in feeding the tobacco rope or strand, isthat the bunch H, (Fig. 2), is longer from the apex of the projection tothe apex of the incision than is the case with the bunch I (Fig. 3),hence it is necessary to move the first mentioned bunch a greaterdistance forward, in order to clear the supporting plate. The secondfiller, I, has a tapered tuck end, 27', and a long incision, i in thehead, while the third filler, J, is simi ar to the first filler, H, inthat the head, 7', has a long taper while the tuck has a short incision,j, the end portion of the remaining filler strand G having a shorttaper, 7c. The incision, 2', in the head of the second bunch, I, and thetaper, y', to

v the head of the third bunch, J, is given by the knife, E, while theincision, j, in the tuck of the third filler J and the short taper, is,to the end of the filler strand, G, is made by the tuck knife, F, thetwo knives operating simultaneously on the second down stroke. Theknives are now lifted, and the second filler, I, is rolled by theapplication of a tobacco binder thereto as shown by Fig. 5, saidoperation closing the incision 1', of the second filler and producing asecond complete bunch. The trough, C, now moves with a long period so asto again advance the tiller strand, G, and eject the third filler, J,from the die-box, thus bringing the end, is, of the strand G below theknives. The third filler, J, is now rolled into a binder which closesthe incision, j, to complete the tuck, and the operations of assemblingthe leaves, feeding the strand, severing the lengths of filler from saidstrand, and rolling the fillers individually into binders are repeatedfor an indefinite number of times.

It will be noted that the adjacent tillers, H, I, or I, J, are producedwith shaped heads and tucks and that they are in re versed order, thatis, the heads and tucks of adjacent fillers point or face in oppositedirections, as for example, the heads, la, a, of the first and secondfillers point in opposite directions. Furthermore, the knife, E, at oneoperation makes the heads of two reversed fillers, the head of onefiller having the taper and the head of the other filler having anincision, the latter being closed by pressing together the tobacco ofthe tiller so as to give the taper to the head of the bunch. In likemanner, the knife, F, makes the tuck of two bunch-fillers, one havingthe taper and the other an incision which is closed by pressing togetherthe tobacco of the tiller, these operations being indicated by full anddotted lines in Figs. 4t and 5 of the drawings.

By producing shaped bunches in reversed order, the bunches facing orpointing at the head in one direction may be advantageously wrapped withright hand tobacco wrappers by rolling them to the right, while theother bunches with heads pointing in the opposite direction may befinished by rolling them toward the left in left hand tobacco wrappers.

It is evident that my invention may be practiced by hand or bymachinery, or by a combination of both.

Having thus fully described my invention, what I claim as new and desireto secure by Letters Patent is l. The method of making cigar buncheswhich consists in assembling leaves of tobacco lengthwise and into astrand of filler tobacco; dividing the strand or rope transversely andproducing lengths of cut filler, each filler length being incised at oneend and excised at the other end, the successive lengths of cut fillerbeing arranged reversely in relation to their head and tuck ends, androlling the successive lengths of filler in opposite directionsindividually within suitable binders.

2. The method of making cigar bunches which consists in assemblingleaves of tobacco lengthwise and into a continuous strand offillertobacco, moving the tiller strand cndwise with intervals of rest ordwell, cutting the tiller in the intervals of rest and producingtherefrom revcrsely arranged lengths of cut filler, each tiller lengthhaving an incision at one end and a taper at the other, and rolling thesuccessive lengths of filler right and left respectively withinindividual binders.

3. The method of making cigars which consists in assembling leaves oftobacco lengthwise and in overlapping order to produce a strand offiller tobacco; dividing from the strand a plurality of lengths offillers each with an incision at one end and a taper at the other, saidfillers being reversely arranged in relation to their head and tuckends; closing the incision in each filler by rolling it within a binder,and individually wrapping the successively produced bunches in oppositedirectionsand within wrappers from the opposite halves of stemmedtobacco leaves.

1. The method of making cigars which consists in cutting successivelyfrom a mass of tobacco a plurality of fillers, each having an excisionat one end and an incision at the other, the successive lengths offillers being reversely arranged in relation to their head and tuckends, and inclosing the individual fillers by rolling the successivelengths in opposite directions Within suitable tobacco leaves.

5. The method of making cigar bunches which consists, first, inassembling leaves of tobacco to produce a mass of tobacco ofapproximately circular form in cross section, and then severing from themass a short filler length by two simultaneous cuts, one cut producing asingle excision and the other out a single incision, such excision andincision cuts being at the respective ends of the short filler, theincision differing both in shape and length from the excision.

6. The method of making cigars which consists in cutting from a mass oftobacco lengths of filler which are arranged reversely in respect totheir head and tuck ends, and individually wrapping the successivereversely-arranged fillers in opposite directions.

7. The method of making cigars which consists in cutting from a mass oftobacco lengths of filler which are reversely arranged in respect totheir head and tuck ends; rolling each filler in a binder, andthereafter rolling the successive reversely arranged rolled-fillers inopposite directions within individual wrappers.

8. The method of making cigars which consists in assembling bundles oftobacco leaves lengthwise to produce a strand; cutting the strand atintervals into lengths of filler which are reversely arranged inrelation to their head and tuck ends; rolling the fillers into binders,and wrapping the suc cessive rolled fillers or bunches in oppositedirections, within suitable wrappers.

9. The method of making, cigars which consists in assembling bundles ofleaf tobacco lengthwise to produce a strand; feeding the strand endwiseand cutting it at intervals to produce lengths of filler which arereversely arranged in relation to their head and tuck ends; rolling thelengths of filler into suitable binders, and wrapping the reverselyarranged rolled fillers in opposite directions within suitable wrappers.

10. In the art of preparing cigar fillers, the method which consists inproducing a filler for a cigar bunch by simultaneously cutting a singleexcision and a single incision at the respective ends of the filler,such excision and the incision difiering in length. and shape.

11. That improvement in the art of preparing cigar fillers whichconsists in cutting at intervals from a mass of tobacco a plurality offillers, the successive fillers being reversely arranged in relation totheir head and tuck ends, each filler having a single incision at oneend and a single excision at the other.

12. That improvement in the art of preparing cigar fillers whichconsists in assembling bundles of tobacco leaves into a strand oftobacco filler, and cutting at intervals a plurality of fillers, eachhaving a single incision at one end and a single excision at the other,the successive lengths of filler being reversely arranged in relation totheir head and tuck ends.

18. The method of making cigar bunches which consists in assemblingtobacco leaves to produce a strand of filler tobacco; cutting a lengthof filler therefrom; feeding the strand for a distance equal to twolengths of filler; simultaneously cutting two lengths of filler from thefed strand, each cut length of filler being incised and excised at itsrespective ends, 'and the successive lengths of cut filler beingreversely arranged in relation to their head and tuck ends, and rollingthe fillers individually into binders.

14. The method of making cigars which consists in feeding a mass orstrand of leaf tobacco endwise; cutting the strand or mass at intervalsto produce cut lengths of filler, the successive lengths being reverselyarranged in relation to their head and tuck ends; and wrapping thesuccessive reversed lengths of filler in opposite directions withinindividual inclosures.

15. The method of making cigars which consists in feeding a mass orstrand of leaf tobacco endwise; cutting the mass or strand at intervalsto produce lengths of filler, the successive lengths being reverselyarranged in relation to their head and tuck ends; ejecting the fillersby the advancing strand or mass of tobacco; rolling the fillersindividually into binders; and finally wrapping the successive reversedrolled fillers within individual Wrappers and in opposite directions. 7

16. A cigar filler consisting of a bunch of tobacco cut from a preparedmass to produce a bunch filler having a single incision at one end and asingle excision at the other end, the incision and excision being ofdifferent shapes and lengths.

17. A cigar filler consisting of a bunch of tobacco having a singleincision and a single excision at the respective ends; said singleincision being of a different length and shapefrom the excision, thetobacco at the incised end of the filler being pressed inwardly to closesaid incision, leaving the excision intact at the other end of thefiller.

18. A cigar filler comprising filler tobacco having an incision and anexcision at the respective ends of the filler, said incision being of adifferent length from the excision.

19. A cigar filler comprising filler tobacco cut to the required lengthand provided With an incision and an excision, whereby the incised endof the filler tobacco may be closedduring the operation of applying abinder or wrapper to the filler.

20. A cigar filler comprising a mass of filler tobacco cut to therequired length and provided with an incision and an excision at therespective ends, said incision being of a different shape from theexcision, whereby the prepared mass'may be bunched to produce a cigarthe head and tuck ends of which are of different shapes.

21. The improvement in the art of producing cigar fillers which consistsin cutting from a mass of tobacco a length of filler which is providedat its ends with an incision and an excision, respectively, andsubsequently wrapping said length ofpre pared filler.

22. The improvement in the art of producing cigar fillers which consistsin cutting from a mass of tobacco a length of filler which is providedat its ends with an incision and an excision, respectively, moving themass of filler in the direction of its length and in the intervalsbetween the cuts, and subsequently wrapping each cut length of preparedfiller.

28. The improvement in the artof producing cigar fillers which consistsin successively cutting from a mass of tobacco lengths of filler each ofwhich is provided atone end with an excision and at the other end withan incision, moving the mass of filler tobacco in the direction of itslength, and for varying distances, in the intervals between thesuccessive cuts, and subsequently wrapping each cut length of preparedfiller.

In testimony that I claim the foregoing as my own, I have hereuntosigned my name in the presence of two subscribing witnesses.

JAMES EDWARD SMITH.

\Vitnesses O'r1s MILLER, STEPHEN MCCORMICK.

